June 18, 2023

Happy Father's Day! We got to celebrate last week with Tracey and her family because my niece Terissha was in town and came to visit! Visits with Terissha are always a party and it was good to see her. She is one of the most loving, hardworking, generous women I know. She currently lives in Utah but used to live in Washington so she was in town for work and to visit with some friends. She said she couldn't show up empty handed so she brought flowers for BOTH Tracey and I and also showed up in a Mustang convertible!! Of course Tracey's girls wanted to drive it and Terissha kindly agreed. I told Danica she looked like a Barbie in a Barbie car except the car wasn't pink! I took my flowers to the office so that I could enjoy them all week.

This week we made dinner for the Spanish Zone Conference. It was sloppy joes, chips, watermelon, salad, and ice cream drumsticks. Elder Rowan is loving this Spanish connection and speaking with the missionaries whenever he gets a chance. He brought a Spanish Book of Mormon and some Spanish pamphlets home from the office and tries to read them every night before going to sleep. He says the Spanish is coming back more every day.

This is Sister Conrad below. She is one of our Spanish speaking missionaries. Her mother and I served together in the Draper temple so I have felt a special connection to Sister Conrad! She radiates such light and happiness and sings like an angel! I always give her an extra hug for her mother.

President and Sister Phillips enjoying their ice cream drumsticks!

Since Sister Romney was finally leaving for Peru this week the President gave permission for our district to attend the temple. It was so special to attend the temple with some of our missionaries. It is transfers next week and these missionaries have all been here for a while so we may not get to spend a lot more time with them.

I should probably start recording the names of the missionaries because I am sure I will start to forget. They are Sisters Romney, Larsen, and Womack. Then Elders Place, Pierce, and Williams. Elder Place is 6'11" and has the distinction of being the tallest in the mission. Elders Pierce and Williams are our current Assistants to the President.

The rest of the week was pretty run of the mill except that we had the Elders from our ward for dinner on Thursday night. They are the (4) in our District which also includes Elder Bain, who did not get to attend the temple with us. Elder Bain goes home with the next transfer so I asked him what he wanted for dinner. I was surprised when he said Tater Tot Casserole! Really!! I don't think I have made that since the 80's but I made it for him and he said it was just as good as his moms! Small moment of happiness.

Elder Rowan gets lots of phone calls about the cars and is always happy when he can answer the questions. Oregon has quite the system here with traffic cam tickets. We were notified of a ticket some missionaries got two years ago that was never paid. The missionaries turned right on a red light without coming to a stop. We can log in and see the video of the violation. Since the missionaries are long gone home we were advised to just pay it since the ticket is in the name of the church. But just a few days later some of our sister missionaries got the exact same ticket!!! And these are not cheap tickets, the fine is $265.00. The policy is that the missionaries have to pay the tickets out of their own pockets, not with church funds so these are not fun phone calls for Elder Rowan to make. In this case there were (4) sisters in the car so they will split the ticket (4) ways. Sad learning experience!